London Hospital: S1

Streaming video - 2006

Romance, surgery and history combine in this vivid, atmospheric drama based on the lives and case notes of doctors, nurses and patients at the Royal London Hospital a century ago. Set in the heart of the East End amid horrific danger and poverty, when illnesses such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, measles, syphilis, diphtheria are rife, Whitechapel life tumbles through the emergency room doors daily in victims of violence, suicide, drink and drugs. Themes of funding crises, terrorist threats, medical advances and deadly infections still resonate today, but in many ways this is a shocking and foreign world, in which relationships were not permitted between staff and some treatments seem fascinatingly remote. Through extreme hardship shines a spi...rit of forbearance and self-sacrifice that seems remarkable now. more